‘So what do you want to do tonight?’

‘Oh … I don’t mind. You choose.’ I stretched out, feeling the grass tickle my neck. ‘I might just lie here. If you happened to fall gently on top of me at some point that would be okay.’

I waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t.

‘So … shall we … talk about us?’

‘Us?’

He pulled a blade of grass through his teeth. ‘Yup. I just thought … well, I wondered what you thought was going on here.’

‘You make us sound like a maths problem.’

‘Just trying to make sure we don’t have any more misunderstandings, Lou.’

I watched him discard the grass, and pick a new blade. ‘I think we’re good,’ I said. ‘Well, I’m not going to accuse you of having a neglected child this time. Or a trail of imaginary girlfriends.’

‘But you’re still holding back.’

It was gently said, but it felt like a kick.

I pushed myself up on my elbow, so that I was looking down on him. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? You’re the first person I call at the end of the day. We see each other when we can. I wouldn’t call that holding back.’

‘Yup. We see each other, we have sex, eat some nice meals.’

‘I thought that was basically every man’s dream relationship.’

‘I’m not every man, Lou.’

We gazed at each other in silence for a minute. I no longer felt relaxed. I felt wrong-footed, defensive.

He sighed. ‘Don’t look like that. I don’t want to get married or anything. I’m just saying … I’ve never met any woman who wanted less to talk about what might be going on.’ He shaded his eyes with his hand, squinting slightly into the sun. ‘It’s fine if you don’t want this to be a long-term thing. Well, okay, it’s not, but I just want an idea of what you’re thinking. I guess, since Ellen died, I’ve realized life is short. I don’t want …’

‘You don’t want what?’

‘To waste time on something that isn’t going anywhere.’

‘Waste time?’

‘Bad choice of words. I’m not good at this stuff.’ He pushed himself upright.

‘Why does it have to be anything? We have fun together. Why can’t we just let it run and, I don’t know, see what happens?’

‘Because I’m human. Okay? And it’s hard enough to be around someone who is still in love with a ghost, without them also acting like they’re just using you for sex.’ He raised his hand, covering his eyes. ‘Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I just said that out loud.’

My voice, when it emerged, cracked a little. ‘I’m not in love with a ghost.’

This time he didn’t look at me. He pushed himself to a seated position and rubbed at his face. ‘Then let him go, Lou.’

He climbed heavily to his feet and walked off to the railway carriage, leaving me staring behind him.

Lily arrived back the following evening, slightly sunburned. She let herself into the flat and walked past the kitchenette, where I was unloading the washing-machine, wondering for the fifteenth time whether to call Sam, and flopped onto the sofa. As I stood at the counter and watched, she put her feet on the coffee-table, picked up the remote control and flicked on the television.

‘So how was it?’ I said, after a moment had passed.

‘Okay.’

I waited for something more, braced for the remote control to be hurled down, for her to stalk off muttering, That family is impossible. But she simply changed channels.

‘What did you do?’

‘Not much. Talked a bit. Actually, we gardened.’ She turned round, resting her chin on her hands on the back of the sofa. ‘Hey, Lou. Have we got any of that cereal with the nuts left? I’m starving.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Are we talking?

Sure. What do you want to say?

Sometimes I look at the lives of the people around me and I wonder if we aren’t all destined to leave a trail of damage. It’s not just your mum and dad who fuck you up, Mr Larkin. I gazed around me, like someone suddenly handed clear glasses, and saw that pretty much everyone bore the brutal imprint of love, whether lost, whipped away from them or simply vanished into a grave.

Will had done it to all of us, I saw now. He hadn’t meant to, but even in simply refusing to live, he had.

I loved a man who had opened up a world to me but hadn’t loved me enough to stay in it. And now I was too afraid to love a man who might love me in case … In case what? I turned it over in my head in the silent hours after Lily had retreated to the glowing digital distractions of her room.

Sam didn’t call. I couldn’t blame him. What would I have said, anyway? The truth was that I didn’t want to talk about what we were because I didn’t know.

It wasn’t that I didn’t love being with him. I suspected I became slightly ridiculous around him – my laugh goofy, my jokes silly and puerile, my passion fierce and surprising even to myself. I felt better when he was there, more the person I wanted to be. More of everything. And yet.

And yet.

To commit to Sam was to commit to the likelihood of more loss. Statistically most relationships ended badly and, given my mental state over the past two years, my chances of beating the odds were pretty low. We could talk around it, we could lose ourselves in brief moments, but love ultimately meant more pain. More damage – to me or, worse, to him.